A friend just gave me his i7 Lenovo IdeaPad 710S.(Current Specs Below) I want to make it a Dual-boot Win/Linux machine.

I'm starting with a NEW SAMSUNG 970 EVO Plus SSD 500GB - M.2 NVMe.

I'm thinking I need 4 partitions. Two for Windows, OS and Win files (NTFS) and two for Linux Mint, OS and files.(EXT) Is this correct? Any hought on partition sizes? I'd also appreciate any suggestions for the formatting/install procedures, and good partition software, etc. Is most partition software capable of Windows NTFS and Linux EXT?

Most research says to get Windows installed first, before adding Linux.

Processor
Intel Core i7-6560U 2 x 2.2 - 3.2 GHz (Intel Core i7)
Graphics adapter
Intel Iris Graphics 540, Core: 1050 MHz, shared Memory, 20.19.15.4364
Memory
8192 MB , LPDDR3, 1866 MHz, Dual-Channel, soldered
Display
13.30 inch 16:9, 1920 x 1080 pixel 166 PPI, Sharp SHP 1447 / LQ133M1JW15, IPS, glossy: no
Mainboard
Intel Skylake-U Premium PCH
Storage
Samsung PM951 NVMe MZVLV256, 256 GB
Weight
1.16 kg ( = 40.92 oz / 2.56 pounds), Power Supply: 170 g ( = 6 oz / 0.37 pound

I'm no expert in all this stuff tho, but if I were doing it, I'd install windows first, use its installer to create the necessary windows partition(s), leaving space for linux/data.

After windows was installed, I'd install linux. During install you can usually control partitioning and I'd leave some free space for a shared data partition. You could use 1-3 partitions for linux this - root, home, and swap. The only real advantage of a swap partition is if you are booting other linux OS (including live from usb, as they can all share the same swap parition so doesnt waste space on each distro), otherwise swapfile is fine (meaning dont create swap partition). Then you decide if you want home folder on separate partition or not; personally preference and can read about plus/minus of that elsewhere, if you dont care tho dont worry about it, just use one parition for all of linux.

After that, I'd use the rest of the space to make an exfat data partition. I'd put my music, documents, videos, downlaods, etc folders there and point to them from both linux and windows.

Linux can deal with the Win10 partitions just fine, the reverse is not true, so the suggestion of a shared partition (exFAT) is an excellent one if you intend to access Linux created files from Win10. exFAT allows large (>4G) filesize.
Don't worry about how many partitions - with gpt you no longer need to care. Let Win10 do its dirty work, and clean up after it. You can resize from either Win or Linux in need to get some unallocated space for the Linux install. I prefer to do it from the liveCD prior to installing Linux.

If it all goes down the drain simply erase the SSD and start again - not worth fretting over.

:-)

BTW, win 10 installs 4 partitions on a new drive. After that install and the initial setup with first boot then you can easily change the windows drive size (shrink it) with the windows disk manager and do the linux install in the opened up space.

I'm curious to understand what you're saying. So if you install windows 10 (from usb/dvd) on a new drive, it creates four partitions? FOUR PARITTIONS? MBR?

Win 10, on a uefi system, creates 4 partitions during install and can only be installed with GPT partitioning. It does all the partitioning for you and leaves the following partitions when done. part 1 -> efi, part 2 -> reserved, part 3 -> OS, part 4 -> recovery.

As far as I can tell all 4 are required for proper windows operation long term. The largest, partition 3, is seen as drive C: and is the one that can be shrunk to allow space to install another OS on the drive. The number of partitions are not an issue, but I wanted to give you a heads up so you do not wipe out something windows expects to be there and will not work without.

2 members found this post helpful.

Hi KaisoMod,

Previous posts (see post #7 above in particular) provide information on the partitioning that Windows 10 creates when installing.

For dual-booting Windows and linux (any distro), I always follow this tried and true sequence :

1. Install Windows 10 first. It will want to use the whole disk - let it. It takes care of all required partitioning and you end up with what is described in computersavvy's post #7 above.
   
   
2. Use Windows Disk Management utility to shrink the main (largest ntfs) partition to your desired size. This will free up the space required for you to install linux : it will be un-partitioned, un-formatted space - this is fine - you don't usually need to do anything with it before installing your linux distro.
   
   
3. Install your linux distro from whatever media you are using. Depending on the distro, the installation will be either graphical or not. In the easiest of cases, GUI-based installation programs will suggest you use all of the non-partitioned space on the disk and you can accept this suggestion. The space will be partitioned and formatted with a file system (ext4) for you. Other distros require varying degrees of extra intervention from the user. The easiest I know of are Mint and Ubuntu.
   
   
4. Again, depending in the linux distro you are installing, you may or may not need to manually install a boot loader program. The "easy" ones mentioned in the previous point do this for you automatically and should also detect that you have Windows installed and include it amongst the choices the boot loader will present in its menu at startup.

In a nutshell - that's about it. Let us know how you make out.

Rick

Thanks all for the responses. The new drive comes today. Probably too late to begin, but armed with the above info, I'm more confident.

I have made USB Windows 10, and Linux Mint installer drives. (Separate drives) I was unaware of the 4 partitions made by windows. I saw them when I reinstalled Windows on the machine and thought they were residual bits, or specific to Lenovo's partitioning and would have thought of deleting them. Thanks for the warning!

It will be interesting to see how this all works out. The camera on the laptop works on the initial Windows install, but as soon as Windows updates it breaks it with the 0xA00F4271<MediaCaptureFailedEvent> (0x80070018) error. Over the past week I've tried all manner of fixes, drivers, etc., none have worked. I can't figure it out, but based on a mass of similar complaints online -- including an unsolved thread on the MS support site -- I'm one of thousands (many brands and models) with the problem unsolved. I'm excited to see if the camera will work correctly under Mint.

Best to all.

So the 500gb drive came. I installed it and then Windows. All seems fine. (I haven't updated so the camera works) At any rate, these are the partitions Windows made, but I'm confused. All the Partitions add up to 585GB on a 500GB drive! How does this happen?

Further. I see the EFI partition at 100MB, the recovery Partition at 508MB, and the Windows Boot C: drive at 465.15GB. However, I don't know if drive D: at 32GB, or E: at 87.51GB is the fourth windows partition? I'm assuming one of those can be added to a portion I take from the C: 465gb to be the Mint drive? (Line 2 in the post #7 instructions above?)

I want to split this 500 drive into two 256GB for Windows and Linux. Window OS and windows file storage, and Mint OS and file storage. Suggestions?

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Disk 0 is your new 500 "gb" drive. The difference between 465 and 500 is just due to what they consider gb to mean, whether it means 10^9 bytes, or 2^30 bytes, or something in between. If you care web search for like "GiB vs GB" etc.

So like you, I see three partitions on your new drive, not four. Anyways shrink the NTFS one using windows built in tool, to make space for Linux.

Disk 1 is a ~120G removable drive you have attached. Maybe your USB drive? an external hard drive? But not important.

What is shown there is
disk 0 partition 1 as efi
disk 0 partition 4 as the recovery
C: as the main ntfs (partition 3)
E: as a usb removable drive
D: may be the hidden reserved partition 2

You did not expand the Status column so we cannot see the full details on what the disk manager disks shows those partitions as so it makes it a little harder to analyze, but I am confident that is correct.

It does not show all the partitions fully identified but you can see them when you install linux. Remember to not delete any partition but only shrink the main OS drive (C using the disk manager from within windows.

You should not have any external drives (except the USB you are using to do the install) attached when you do the linux install.

Ok. Got the partitions sorted. However, when I tried to install Mint it had problems with the Lenovo controller being set to RAID, so Mint would not install. I tried changing in the BIOS to AHCI. That killed Windows. I changed it back and then followed instructions on editing the Reg file. No go. I had to reset windows, and now it runs, but Device manager is showing several problems including Standard SATA AHCI Controller not starting. Also, do I have to play around with the boot in the BIOS. When I start the maachine with the Mint USB installed it still starts in Windows? The boot order is:

1. USB HDD:
2. Windows Boot Manager
3. USB FDD:
4. ATA HDD:
5. USB CD:
6. USB LAN:
7. NVMe: Samsung SSD 970 EVO Plus 500GB. (The drive I just installed.)

Should I alter this?

Also, read that in older systems, (not Win 10) Secure Boot in the BIOS should be disabled. It is enabled in my BIOS but this is a Win 10 machine.

I'm wondering if I Should just re-format everything and start over with the BIOS set to AHCI instead of RAID?
Could the RAID setting be essential to this Lenovo model?

Thanks.

Hi KaisoMod,

Apologies in advance if I've missed something from a previous post, but could you explain why your firmware was set to the RAID option instead of AHCI ? My understanding was that this is a laptop that you are going to run with a single disk. If so, I know it's a bother, but I would wipe, set AHCI, and reinstall Windows and then the rest.

For the boot order, I would simply hit the hot-key that brings up your boot device selection (often F9 .. maybe another on the Lenovo) at startup. Not sure why your system is ignoring the USB drive ... maybe something related to the HDD qualifier.

Let us know how you make out.

Rick

Thanks Rick. I too was surprised at the RAID BIOS setting on this single disk laptop. Though I only do this stuff every few years, I understood RAID as a system to speed up a machine with multiple HDs. That's why I asked if was something particular/necessary to Lenovo that I did not know.

If I'm understanding, I make sure the BIOS is set to AHCI, format my windows partition and re install Windows. Then do the Mint install. (Found Boot selection, F12) Any thought on the "secure boot" BIOS settings? I've found info conflicting info that it matters/doesn't.